


Northern Lights

by sigurfox



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alliterative Poetry, Blasphemy, M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 04:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13023312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigurfox/pseuds/sigurfox
Summary: Melkor shows Mairon his new creation.





	Northern Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Einar Benediktsson’s poem “Norðurljós”.

The Discord carves into the height

Wildfire, leapt to smite and fight

Far more spectacular a war.

To paint the dull, lame and aloof

The realm’s ever watchful roof

In incomparable uproar.

 

Migrated up, the surging song

Ignites new sorcery among

Reduced to dust the dormant dots.

The firmament in fiery flash,

Of colourful cores quaint clash,

Unravels the unrivaled thoughts. 

 

Then Melkor, pleased, wants to entwist,

The way the sky slopes now are seized,

In dusk embrace to hold enveloped

His former spy. Stash him in shade,

Possess his heat. Afraid to raid

The fondness fatally developed...

 

Begone the Swordsman and the Sickle!

As multiplying echoes bicker,

The Marrer’s music wins. Henceforth

Black canvas carries different beacons

Where flawless fabric quakes and flickers

Above the Endor’s dreary North.

 

And seven stars will not be viewed.

Imploring eyes them would elude.

A perfect ploy - of interest plunder.

Enormous nature’s naught is nude

No more, lethargic vastitude

Wakes up in rapt erupting wonder.

 

And Mairon drinks in splendour spilled,

The buzz so beautifully built

In dance of His abyssal lore.

The heavens never felt like home,

But thus adorned the Arda’s dome

He would adore forevermore.

 

While fame is stretched across the arch

The heartbeats frame the moments’ march.

And Melkor sets the song afloat.

So He, by impulse strong, unsought,

Could claim another flame, uncaught

Over another brilliance gloat.

 

At last those fierce features soften.

The Maia’s loveliness, that often

Beneath a stern façade he hides,

Illuminated animate 

By His incarnate art is made

When bathed in otherworldly lights.

 

And time taps on and on astride

The might’s unerring steady tide

While all the errands stranded stand.

Like glaciers’ clarity aglow

Or glorious inflaming flow

The fuel fills up stars’ fey land.

 

For Melkor order doesn’t matter.

Thus freely fractal patterns scatter,  

On freckled skin skitter and blaze.

Exposed expanse of splendid skies

Reflected in the amber eyes

Gains meaning and far grander grace.

**Author's Note:**

> Set somewhere above Utumno, shortly after Mairon’s arrival from Almaren.
> 
> My idea is that originally northern lights are designed by Melkor as fractal patterns moving like a kaleidoscope and obscuring the stars, but he gets distracted by Mairon’s beauty. So he loses control over his own magic and the lights go awry. And then Melkor decides that diverting his attention to his new pure Maia is more important than picking the original tunes up. 
> 
> That is why, kids, northern lights are the way they are now.
> 
> ***  
> The Swordsman – the constellation Menelmacar  
> The Sickle – the constellation Valacirca


End file.
